Samsung phones enjoy more popularity in US than iPhone: comScore

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple and Google had been dominating the US smartphone market as 2012 neared its close, industry tracker comScore said on Thursday.

The share of smartphone service subscribers relying on Google’s Android software rose to 53.7 percent in the three months leading up to December, while Apple’s portion grew to 35 percent from 34.3 percent, comScore reported.

The most popular mobile phones were made by Samsung, whose handsets were used by 26.9 percent of US telecom service subscribers, according to comScore.

Apple iPhones accounted for 18.5 percent of subscribers in the overall mobile phone market, up from 17.1 percent in August.

Canonical announced a smartphone interface version of its Ubuntu desktop computer operating system based on open-source Linux code. Ubuntu smartphones can dock with keyboards and monitors to provide personal computer capabilities, according to Canonical.

“We expect Ubuntu to be popular in the enterprise market, enabling customers to provision a single secure device for all PC, thin client and phone functions,” Canonical chief executive Jane Silber said in a release.

Dell, Lenovo, and Hewlett Packard are listed among computer makers who build Ubuntu into machines for the global market. Ubuntu runs on more than 20 million desktop computers, according to Canonical.